


Heartlines

by BansheeLydia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Death, F/F, Future Fic, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pining, Roommates, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 10:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6514765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BansheeLydia/pseuds/BansheeLydia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m thinking of moving out.”</p>
<p>For just the briefest of moments, Lydia’s hand stilled.  Allison held her breath, waiting, not letting herself dare hope.  A second later, though, Lydia’s fancy pen was scratching across her notepad again and her roommate didn’t even look up, just gave a noncommittal hum.</p>
<p>“Okay,” she said. </p>
<p>Bitterness seared Allison’s throat. “Okay?” she repeated, voice as raw as she felt.</p>
<p>Lydia looked up, offering a small smile. “Okay. Whatever makes you happy, Allison. If you need a hand with packing or anything, let me know, okay?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartlines

**Author's Note:**

> please read the end notes before reading.

“I’m thinking of moving out.”

For just the briefest of moments, Lydia’s hand stilled. Allison held her breath, waiting, not letting herself dare hope. A second later, though, Lydia’s fancy pen was scratching across her notepad again and her roommate didn’t even look up, just gave a noncommittal hum.

“Okay,” she said. 

Bitterness seared Allison’s throat. “Okay?” she repeated, voice as raw as she felt.

Lydia looked up, offering a small smile. “Okay. Whatever makes you happy, Allison. If you need a hand with packing or anything, let me know, okay?”

Allison felt like she’d been gutted. It had to show on her face – she felt like her feelings were bleeding out of every pore on her body – but Lydia didn’t flinch, just gazed back without an iota of emotion on her face, and Allison had to look away, stomach churning.

Lydia had always been good at hiding her emotions. Her expression could be so warm, so open one minute, and cold and hard the next; she knew how to keep her feelings and secrets and thoughts locked tightly away. Everything about her was held in tight, restrained behind a close mouthed smile. 

Allison...Allison could never quite pull that level of coolness off. She always felt completely flayed by Lydia, like her roommate – her _best friend_ – could see right through her with one glance to tell what she was really feeling or thinking. She always felt so open, so completely readable to Lydia, and she got used to that feeling of vulnerability around Lydia. Now...she wished she could smooth over the jagged edges of her feelings, wished she could hide how hurt she really was from Lydia.

“I think I’ve got it,” she muttered, tapping her fingernails against Lydia’s doorframe. “But thanks.”

Lydia’s smile was feather light and she pushed a hand through her hair so it fell around her face. “No problem.” She turned back to her work, pen scratching against paper again, and Allison could feel humiliation crawling over her flesh.

She stepped out of the room, pressed her back against the wall outside and let her skull bang gently against it, and closed her eyes. She allowed herself one moment, just one second, of _feeling it_ , before she released her breath in one long exhale and walked away.

-:- -:- -:-

Lydia’s door was shut.

It was always shut these days.

There was a time when she never closed it, even at night (and Allison always wondered how she could do that, how she could sleep without that creeping, slithering paranoia of something or someone coming in during the night while she was at her most vulnerable), and even if she was busy or changing, she never minded Allison just stepping in to talk to her or hang out.

The door shut for the first time two months ago, the same night Allison bit the bullet and kissed her. That time, Allison had been on the other side, in the bedroom with Lydia. 

It had shut for the second time the morning after, with Allison firmly on the other side of it, sleepy and confused in the hallway. 

It had barely opened since.

“You don’t have a lot of stuff.”

Allison blinked at Kira’s voice, looking over at her friend. She was right; she didn’t have a lot of possessions. Mostly just clothes and a few books. 

“I threw out a lot of it,” she murmured. She’d ripped a lot of mementos apart a couple of weeks after Lydia shut her out – of her room and of her life – and saved only one photo of the two of them, sat on Lydia’s bed and laughing the previous summer. She couldn’t bear to get rid of it and she hated herself for it. It was tucked securely in a book of French poetry, sealed away in one of the boxes.

Kira studied her face for a moment before nodding. “Cool. So, what’s the new place like?”

Allison looked around the apartment one last time. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was spacious, with a kitchen Allison had adored and a bathroom that had doors to both hers and Lydia’s bedrooms. It was her first place as an adult, and she’d loved having little touches of her and Lydia all over the place. It was odd to see it so bare now, with only a few of Lydia’s things visible in the tidy space. It was almost clinical and it was weird to think it had once been the hearth of Allison’s life, warm and comforting and always there. 

“Small,” she replied. Taking a deep breath, she glanced over at Kira with a smile. “It’s a fifth floor walk up.”

Kira exaggerated a groan, lifting up one of the boxes. “In that case, I’m glad you don’t have a lot of stuff.”

Allison grinned and together, they loaded up the few boxes into the back of Kira’s car. Allison’s own had been sold a while ago. She hadn’t had much use for a car in the city when she usually took public transit to and from work and the store. Allison headed back up alone, tossing her set of keys onto the table. 

She didn’t know if Lydia was in or not; she hadn’t come out of her room at all since Allison woke up.

Either way, Lydia’s door was still firmly shut.

-:- -:- -:-

Having a routine made things easier.

Her job kept her busy, especially now she was taking on more overtime to cover the cost of living alone. She worked, she got groceries, she socialized, and she tried to keep herself busy in the evenings by watching TV or reading a book or calling her dad.

It was at night that things fell apart a little. In the dark, it was so easy to remember. To think about how Lydia had felt underneath her body, how her little gasps had tasted against Allison’s mouth, how it had felt so good to touch and explore and give Lydia pleasure. 

It was harder, though, to think about the friendship they’d had before. They’d been best friends since high school. Even dealing with the things not every student had to contend with – like werewolves and kanimas and Lydia being a banshee – their friendship held strong. She’d never had a friend so close before. Even after Boyd and Erica, even after Jackson and Stiles...their pack was broken, fragmented, falling apart where there were just gaping holes where friends used to be. But they were still best friends.

Harder still was not understanding. If Lydia hadn’t been interested, she could understand some of Lydia’s behaviour, though she’d never have thought her friend would cut her out completely. They hadn’t been in a relationship, Allison hadn’t confessed how much she loved Lydia – so much it was hard to breathe sometimes – and there hadn’t been an argument. 

Just one night together and then Lydia had shut her out.

Most nights, Allison ended up curled on her side, squeezing her stomach to try and keep everything in until she fell asleep. 

The hardest thing, though, was not being able to try and heal and move on. She and Lydia were in the same pack, had the same friends. Allison hadn’t gone to any of the pack outings, not wanting to see Lydia so soon, when she was still so raw. But there were still little ghosts of Lydia everywhere, in a laugh from Kira when she got a text while they were out for coffee, in the careful way Scott spoke to her now in case he slipped up and mentioned Lydia’s name, in Isaac’s grin when he repeated a joke Lydia had told him.

She didn’t have to see Lydia for her to still be everywhere. 

So the first time she did see Lydia, almost four months since she’d moved out, the world didn’t come crashing down. She expected to feel a punch of hurt or regret, or that scratch of humiliation in her throat, but all she felt was a tired kind of resignation. After all, it had to happen eventually.

It was in the grocery store and they were in the same queue at the checkout. Lydia met her gaze. For a fraction of a second, her lips tilted up, almost like an echo of a smile before she turned her head away and that same distant expression that cut right through Allison came back.

They didn’t speak. Lydia paid for her groceries and left, heels tapping on the floor. Allison watched her go. Lydia didn’t look back.

Allison had experienced awkward run ins with exes before, but this was different. She couldn’t even call Lydia an ex. She was a lost friend. A ruined potential. An almost that fell flat. 

-:- -:- -:-

“Lydia’s looking for a new roommate.” Malia’s voice was quiet, almost apologetic. That struck Allison more than the words did.

She looked up, tucking her hair firmly behind her ears. “Okay,” she replied.

Malia just gazed at her, sat cross legged on Allison’s bed and munching on the stash of chocolate she’d found in the bedside drawer. Allison sat down at her desk to pull on her boots, trying to keep her feelings masked.

“Okay?” Malia finally repeated.

“It had to happen eventually. Besides, it’s none of my business.”

“She asked about you.”

She did stop then, closing her eyes briefly. Bitterness swelled inside her. “Why?”

“She wanted to know if you were doing okay,” Malia shrugged. “I told her to ask you herself.”

Sometimes, Allison liked Malia’s blunt honesty. She rubbed her hands over her face, releasing a slow breath.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

Malia didn’t say anything more about it and Allison let the conversation drop. She felt like all her nerves were scrubbed raw, exposed like live wires just from the mention of Lydia. All the carefully cultivated ways to avoid her feelings crumbled down and she knew it was her fault for ever giving Lydia the power to do that in the first place.

She tried to put it out of her mind as she and Malia left to meet the others, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Lydia. She’d asked about her, wanted to know if she was doing okay. Allison couldn’t decide if she was relieved or furious about that and by the time she got home, she was worked up enough to make bad decisions.

Like calling Lydia.

Her heart pounded as she listened to the dial tone. Maybe Lydia had deleted Allison’s number or blocked it. Maybe she’d even changed her own phone number –

“ _Hi, you’ve reached Lydia Martin, sorry I can’t take your call right now_ -.”

Allison closed her eyes, almost relieved to reach voicemail. If Lydia had answered, she didn’t really know what she would have said or done. There was just so much she wanted to say and ask and _do_ , all of it bubbling at her lips, trying to spill out. When the beep sounded, she gripped the phone tightly, drawing in a shaky breath.

“Malia told me you were getting a new roommate and I – I can’t not think about it, Lydia. They won’t...they won’t _know_.” Frustrated at the wobble in her voice, Allison rolled onto her side under her blanket, curling up. “They won’t know that you hate mushroom on pizza and that you love steak and fries but will never make it for yourself. 

“They won’t know that sometimes you need reminding about the real world when you’re all focused on work and you’ve got that little frown between your brows and they won’t know that peppermint tea is your go to when you can’t sleep. They won’t – they won’t know that you deal with bad days with fudge brownie ice cream and your favorite movie...they won’t know what your favorite movie _is_ , because you always insist that it’s _The Notebook_ but I know how much you love _Beauty and the Beast_ more. 

“They won’t know that sometimes you like to cry in the shower and sometimes you like to dance around the apartment and you need a dancing partner and...and Lydia, when you wake up screaming, they won’t know what to do. They won’t know to hold you and bring you tea and sing to you, they just...won’t.”

Her throat felt dry as sandpaper but she still swallowed, throat clicking. “I did. I knew that stuff. Because I was your friend, Lydia. You...you were my _best friend_.”

She licked her lips, opened her mouth to say more, but the message was cut off. Closing her eyes, she sent it and tossed her phone aside, pressing her face into her pillow.

She felt almost better. 

-:- -:- -:-

Her phone rang at 3am.

Allison groaned, squinting one eye open, and clumsily patted around the bed until her fingers brushed cool metal. She picked it up, looking blearily at the ID.

_Lydia_.  
Her heart rocketed into her throat as she looked at the picture she had for Lydia’s contact, a photo of the two of them at Disneyland grinning. With a slightly shaky hand, she pressed answer and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

A trembling exhale. “ _Allison_.”

She closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she repeated. 

“Allison, I...” there was a long pause and when Lydia spoke again, her voice sounded thick, like she’d been crying. “I can’t lose you, Allison.”

A bitter sound choked out of Allison’s throat. She rolled over, tugging the blanket over her head. “You already did, remember?”

“No, I...just let me talk, okay?” 

Part of Allison, a small, vindictive part, was tempted to just hang up. To give Lydia a taste of her own medicine. 

She didn’t.

“So talk,” she muttered.

“You don’t...you don’t know what it’s like to feel the things I do. To know when someone is going to die. I was barely even friends with Erica and Boyd and it still...it still tore me open when I felt them die. God, Allison, why do you think I scream the way I do? And then...and then Jackson. I held him in my arms and I couldn’t _do_ anything, I couldn’t stop it, I just knew and then he was gone. And then Stiles. Do you remember how Scott looked at me when I screamed Stiles’ name? I had his blood on my hands and in my voice and everyone said it wasn’t my fault but Stiles is still dead and still not coming back. Every single time I feel someone I care about die, it feels like part of me dies with them.”

Lydia paused and Allison knew she was crying now, could hear it in her voice, the choked sound that was almost a sob, and her heart ached. But she didn’t speak, just let Lydia take a deep breath and carry on talking.

“I love you, Allison. I love you so much. You’re my best friend. You’re...you’re more than that. And that night we spent together...I wanted that for the rest of my life. I wanted to be selfish enough to let myself have it. But I can’t lose you, Allison. I can’t...I can’t bear to let you even closer to what’s left of my heart only to feel it get ripped apart someday.”

In the silence that followed, Allison stayed quiet, slowly chewing over Lydia’s words. Her heart ached for Lydia and there was a part of her that was guilty for never realizing just how much weight Lydia was carrying on her shoulders, for never noticing just how badly she was hurting.

But there was a part of her that was still angry. She wanted so badly to forgive Lydia, to tell her everything she wanted to hear, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be telling the truth if she did.

“So shutting me out is better?” she questioned softly. “Hurting me and hurting yourself just so someday when I die, whether it be next year or in thirty years, it won’t hurt as much? That’s not fair, Lydia. Not to me and not to yourself. You can’t live like that, never letting anyone close because you might predict their death. It’s not healthy, you...you’re going to destroy yourself that way.”

“I know,” Lydia whispered. “God, Allison, I _know_.”

“You should have just talked to me, Lydia. I’m your best friend. If you’d just spoken to me about it instead of cutting me out, I could have helped.” Allison said quietly. “I can’t promise that I won’t die and I can’t promise that you won’t feel it. But I could have _helped_ you. I could have supported you. I could have been there for you to talk to about it and lean on. We could’ve...we could’ve been happy.”

“Allison...”

She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have anything more to say. She was hurting so badly, knowing why Lydia had shut her out, and she wished things were different. She wished she’d noticed before so she could have helped. She wished Lydia had spoken to her. She wished for so many things, but she didn’t know how to fix the situation, how to make things right between her and Lydia again. She didn’t know if things _could_ be put right between them.

“Can we meet?” Lydia asked. “Tomorrow for coffee? And just...talk?”

Maybe things couldn’t be put right, but there was always that first step, always a reason to _try_. So she closed her eyes and replied, softly, “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> includes: angst, off screen major character deaths of Erica, Boyd, Jackson and Stiles, open/ambiguous ending (not really a happy ending).


End file.
